| Page 4 of 4 < |
'Big John Is Still Big John'
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
The question was posed earlier this week to his drive-time talk-show co-hosts, Al Koken and Rick "Doc" Walker.
"Are you kidding?" Koken said. "He keeps us hostage for three hours a day in here."
"His players only had to deal with him for four years," Walker said. "Ask any of those guys if they want to do a double? Hell no, he hasn't changed."
From the balcony of his opulent Arlington townhouse across the Potomac River, Thompson can see McDonough Gymnasium, where he still keeps an office. It's a physical manifestation of the long shadow he still casts over the athletic department on the Hilltop. But when asked about his role in the 2004 firing of his replacement and longtime assistant Craig Esherick and subsequent hiring of his son as the team's head coach, Thompson's engaging contemporary demeanor is quickly replaced by the defiance of old.
"I wish they could stop giving black people this mythical power," Thompson said. "Give me some real power. Then I'll show him my influence. They'll feel me.
"That is more of an insult to John and what he's accomplished. John had won Ivy League championships [as coach of Princeton]. Now, I was Georgetown University's former coach. Don't you think they'd be pretty stupid not to ask my opinion on matters that pertain to basketball? But I would love to have had half of the power people said I had because I would have used that power in much different ways than they thought I did."
Thompson expresses similar amazement with the people who now define him by "sound-biting my life."
"I was probably big and I was probably angry and I was definitely black, but I never put my hand on anybody's child," he said. "And I never allowed anyone to put their hands on mine."
He leaned back in his chair during a commercial break, clasped his hands together and breathed deeply.
"All of a sudden people see me laughing on the radio, hear me talking and cracking jokes, they say, 'Damn, I didn't know he was that way,' " John Thompson Jr. said.
"Yeah, you didn't know me."
